Salvador Dali Clocks

Our district's art museum (Altharetta Yeargin Art Museum http://cms.springbranchisd.com/Default.aspx?alias=cms.springbranchisd.com/ayam) has begun their annual First Saturday's Art Programs. The theme this year is "From Rembrandt to Warhol, Great Artist and Their Art". For the month of October, the focus was on "Modern Masters"-  Picasso, Dali, Matisse, Van Gogh etc.

My sessions were based on Salvador Dali and his painting "The Persistence of Memory".

I found this great video (http://www.videojug.com/film/how-to-make-a-salvador-dali-clock) on how to make a clock out of an old record album. The video used an oven at 200 degrees. Since we were doing this activity in a classroom, I pulled out all of my old electric skillets (used for melting crayons to batik) and filled them with water. I set them at about 200-250 degrees it worked just as well as heating the albums in the oven.

I had a friend who donated all of her old 80's albums for this project, so I didn't need to worry about that expense. The one thing that I did have difficulty with was finding inexpensive clocks! I hit up every resale shop, Salvation Army and dollar store in my area and found that clocks are not cheap. I did have a few clock donated, which helped out a lot.

The clocks were taken apart ahead of time, but for an older group of students, I don't see why they couldn't learn  how to take them apart themselves. You will need to have some screwdrivers and pliers handy.

Probably the most difficult thing was choosing which album to use. Many of the adults went with the nostalgia factor and there were others who chose their album by the artwork on the album. The children didn't really have difficulty, except for the fact that many of them didn't know what an album was- oh, it makes me feel so old!! When I told them that this is how we listened to music before we had CDs, I even had a couple ask me what a CD was! That gave me a good laugh- I hadn't even thought of how some children have only ever listened to music on their iPods and MP3 players. Wow!

In class, I showed the students (for out 1st Saturdays program, many of the students are adults, which is a nice change for me) how to melt the clock and form it with their hands while it was still malleable. They could always put it back into the water to reheat it if they didn't get the desired bend.

Then I had metallic markers out for them to decorate. The metallic looked really nice against the black vinyl.

Our last step was adding the clock mechanism. Once they were put together, they used a glue gun and attached the battery compartment to the back of the album. Pin It

Second Grade Day of the Dead Calaveras

 Second grade is traveling to Mexico, Central America and South America in the art room this year. For our first project, they created their very own Day of the Dead (Dia de los muertos) Calaveras (skulls).

This worked out well for my 98% Hispanic school. The students were actually able to give me information about the holiday that I didn't know.

We started out by looking at a variety of calaveras to get their creativity flowing. They made a quick drawing in their sketchbook to show what they wanted it to look like.

Then came the fun part. If you have never worked with Claycrete before- I highly recommend it! I order mine from Sax 
and a 20 lb box is usually enough to get me through an entire grade level. I give each student their own individual bowl with a heaping 

handful of Claycrete. I pour about 3/4-1 cup of water into it and about 3 tbsp. of glue. They use their hands to mix it up really well. I go around with a pitcher of water and add water to the bowls that are too dry. It should not be dripping wet, but the entire mixture should be moist.

Once it is completely mixed, pass out a skull pattern to each student. This is just a basic shape that I drew and xeroxed. I also give each student a piece of wax paper with a small piece of masking tape on it (to write their names on).

The wax paper goes on top of the pattern (you can see the pattern through the wax paper, without getting Claycrete all over it). The students put the Claycrete onto the wax paper and begin forming their skull. It should be about 1/2"-3/4" thick and smooth.
By the next week, the skulls are dry and we choose 1 color to paint the entire surface. I use acrylic paint for this (I'm not sure if

 tempera would work or not). Then they add facial features and designs with other colors.

The last step is to use beads, sequins, and broken pieces of jewelry (I have tubs of discarded jewelry that were donated by a local store- Charming Charlie's http://www.charmingcharlie.com/home. That was a HUGE hit!!!) I had them glue these on with craft glue, instead of school glue and that seemed to hold the pieces on a lot better.

I have been putting all of the finished projects into a display case in our main entryway. There are still 2 classes that need to finish this week, but I will add pictures of the finished display once they are complete.

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First Grade Picasso's

My first graders are going to be learning about European artists this year and the first one to kick off the new year- Pablo Picasso. They loved looking at his portraits and how he made the eyes look like they were looking out at you and also like they were looking off to the side (the profile). They thought it was very silly that the eyes were not aligned in many of the portraits and how he made many facial features different sizes. They noticed that he didn't always use realistic colors to paint his portraits.

We started our portraits by drawing the head. I let them decide what shape they wanted to use. They could use the standard oval shape or be creative and use a non-standard shape. I had some use triangles, rectangles, squares, etc. Then I had them draw a neck and add 2 lines going out from the neck to create the shoulders. I then had them add hair and told them to make it big and wild.                                                                                     They drew a line down the middle of the face to create the nose and then traced everything with a black marker.

We did a quick review of warm and cool colors (something that we had done previously in Kindergarten) and then they used liquid watercolors (I have pretty much given up on using the regular watercolors. The liquid have a much nicer color and I don't have to replace them every day!) to paint their face with either warm or cool colors.                                                                 They drew the eyes and nose on a separate sheet of paper, drawing 1 eye facing forward and the other in profile and then I had them draw a BIG mouth. Again, they traced them with black marker and painted. Except this time, they painted with the opposite color scheme.

They cut out the heads and glued them onto a piece of construction paper, remembering to use dots of glue to keep it neat and then cut out the eyes and mouth. We reviewed the placement of the eyes in Picasso's paintings and they set to work gluing the facial features on their portraits.

There were lots of giggles as they were assembling their projects. They thought they were really silly!!!

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Great video

I just saw this video on Art Projects for Kids. I had to share it also. Enjoy!

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Fifth Grade Sketchbooks

Every year, my 2nd through 5th graders make their own sketchbooks. We make these out of basic manila and construction paper, stapled together. The students use these to do quick drawings of what they want their final product to look like. At the end of the year, the students get to take them home and they have a sketchbook to draw in over the summer. Last year, I gave the students a challenge: keep your sketchbook and draw in it throughout the summer vacation. Bring it back in the fall and I will automatically give you extra credit. I actually had quite a few students who took this challenge to heart and brought their sketchbooks to me during the first 2 weeks of school.
This year, I decided to splurge on the 5th grade sketchbooks. I bought a journal making kit from Sax (Item #404154).

The students used metallic watercolor paint and painted 2 pieces of paper (I gave them a choice of white or black- next year, I might give them more options) and they filled the pages with color.

When the pages were filled with color, they ripped the papers into pieces the size of a quarter.

They applied the pieces to the chipboard covers using tempera varnish, creating a collage effect.

 When both boards were completely dry, they assembled their sketchbook with 2 chipboards, 30 pages and 1 spiral binder. I let them use metallic markers to decorate the covers. Throughout the year, they will be able to use these to plan out their projects, draw, create a scrapbook, etc. At the end of the year, they will have a genuine sketchbook to take home.

They are so excited about these- especially since they are the only grade level that got to make them! I debated about spending the money on it, but watching the excitement and pride makes it all worthwhile!

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